Nokia 9 PureView Camera is INSANE – 5 Cameras Combine For 240MP Shooter!

Richard Goodwin 25/02/2019 – 8:32am

The Nokia 9 PureView has launched at MWC 2019 and it packs in FIVE cameras that, combined, will created images up 240-megapixels

HMD’s new Nokia phone – the Nokia 9 PureView – just got official at MWC 2019. The handset, which packs in five cameras on the rear, looks and sounds fairly bonkers. I mean, five cameras is crazy, right?

The Nokia 9 PureView runs Android and last year’s Snapdragon 845 CPU. Price-wise, you’re looking at £536 for the phone once it gets a release date in March.

How Does The Nokia 9 PureView Camera Work

The Nokia 9 has five camera sensors (all of which are 12MP). It also packs in an infrared sensor for depth readings. Two of the sensors use an RGB sensor to capture colors, while the other three are monochrome.

According to HMD, this allows the sensors to capture almost three times as much light as normal phones which should ensure excellent low-light performance.

When you take a picture on the Nokia 9, the cameras – all of them – are trigged up to four times in rapid succession. The brains inside the phone’s imaging suite will then pick the best shot and use the additional data from the other cameras to fill in the detail.

This process means that the device can preserve detail within 12.4 stops of the dynamic range, according to HMD. This is very impressive too; no one smartphone on the planet right now can lay claim to being able to do this…

Advanced Editing Abilities When Dealing With Raw Files

The Nokia 9 will take great shots. But the thing that will benefit its users most relates to editing. More specifically, when you’re dealing with Raw files you will have way more data to play with than usual.
You also have a “depth map” that is built from 1200 planes (from 7cm to 40m). Comparatively, normal smartphones only normally provide 10 layer maps…

This technology, while complicated, is designed to help users’ create realistic, natural-looking bokeh effects on their captured images. And this is the "big idea" here: make images comparable to what you’d be able to capture on a dedicated camera or DSLR.

Nokia 9 Specs – What’s It Packing?

As noted earlier, the Nokia 9 is running Qualcomm’s old Snapdragon 845 CPU. The latest iteration, the Snapdragon 855, was considered by HMD but then dropped after engineers realised it would take too long to re-engineer the camera tech for the new chipset.

Keen to get the phone launched around MWC 2019, Nokia pressed on with the outgoing Snapdragon 845 CPU.

Other notable specs include:

• 155 x 75 x 8 mm
• 5.99 P-OLED Display (1440 x 2880)
• Android 9.0 Pie
• 6GB of RAM
• 128GB of Storage
• No SD Card
• 3320mAh Battery
• 20 MP Front-Facing Camera
• 5 X 12MP Rear Carl Zeiss Cameras
• In-Screen Fingerprint Scanner
• Stock Android UX

Nokia 9 PureView Problems…

Initial tests of the Nokia 9 during advanced previews just before MWC 2019 didn’t exactly go to plan. The BBC reported the following, after experiencing a host of issues with the camera technology.

“In brief tests,” noted the report, “the BBC experienced problems with the depth-mapping in several shots, resulting in parts of the image being blurred that should not have been. However, HMD said an updated version of the camera software would be released with the phones.”

Another clanger? It takes several seconds for the phone to process images. This is likely down to it using an older chipset. Maybe this isn’t a deal-breaker, but for me, waiting several seconds to view an image isn’t exactly a plus…

Bottomline? The Nokia 9 appears to be a VERY interesting concept. Whether it will work in practice remains to be seen. In addition to this, it also looks as if HMD has some work to do on the Nokia 9’s software before it is allowed in the hands’ of consumers.

The Nokia 9 release date is scheduled for March, though pre-orders are open from today!